Social Media Twitter Inc., the home of 140-character messages, is removing the space limit in its private messages.The change comes next month, the San Francisco-based company said Thursday on its website for developers. Direct Messages are different from tweets in that they are only visible between individual users.

Social Media Twitter Inc., the home of 140-character messages, is removing the space limit in its private messages.The change comes next month, the San Francisco-based company said Thursday on its website for developers. Direct Messages are different from tweets in that they are only visible between individual users.

Twitter is starting to realize it has more to lose by staying silent on the issue of abuse.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo wrote in a note to employees that he planned to start kicking trolls off of the platform “right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them.”

Gust MEES's insight:

Twitter is starting to realize it has more to lose by staying silent on the issue of abuse.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo wrote in a note to employees that he planned to start kicking trolls off of the platform “right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them.”

Twitter's firehose of tweets has long been offered as a goldmine for businesses trying to understand how to improve or market their products, and now Facebook will allow privacy-safe peeks at its treasure trove, too. Today Facebook launched a new insights product called “Topic Data” in the U.S. and U.K. with the help of brand analytics leader DataSift.

Gust MEES's insight:

Twitter's firehose of tweets has long been offered as a goldmine for businesses trying to understand how to improve or market their products, and now Facebook will allow privacy-safe peeks at its treasure trove, too. Today Facebook launched a new insights product called “Topic Data” in the U.S. and U.K. with the help of brand analytics leader DataSift.

Twitter's firehose of tweets has long been offered as a goldmine for businesses trying to understand how to improve or market their products, and now Facebook will allow privacy-safe peeks at its treasure trove, too. Today Facebook launched a new insights product called “Topic Data” in the U.S. and U.K. with the help of brand analytics leader DataSift.

(From the article): Surprisingly enough, Facebook is giving DataSift the keys to the castle for free in exchange for helping it rapidly break into the market with the startup’s tech and relationships. DataSift will charge analytics firms a fee for queries, who will then mark up the price and sell it to brands.

If brands find the data valuable, it could draw them and their ad budgets closer to Facebook. Until now, Facebook has largely been a black box inside a walled garden. Marketers didn’t know what was said inside. DataSift and Topic Data let them peer inside.

Much has been written about how to write the perfect tweet, from what link shortener to use to how many characters to leave room for retweets.Now the folks at Neomobile have tried their hand at creating a guide to composing the perfect tweet.

Much has been written about how to write the perfect tweet, from what link shortener to use to how many characters to leave room for retweets.Now the folks at Neomobile have tried their hand at creating a guide to composing the perfect tweet.

Info graphics are a great way to assemble and distribute information, especially data in one document. Teachers can request their students to compile data and create a visual to share quantifiable information.

Right now, tracking major stories and events on Twitter requires a certain level of knowledge about how Twitter works. Identifying the right hashtags and right sources is still work. The company has tried in the past make surfacing pertinent tweets easier, but you needed to be a more-or-less seasoned user to draw benefit from them. According to BuzzFeed, Twitter is now in the process of making its real-time news feed accessible to everyone, whether they're on desktop, mobile, or even signed into Twitter to begin with.

Gust MEES's insight:

Right now, tracking major stories and events on Twitter requires a certain level of knowledge about how Twitter works. Identifying the right hashtags and right sources is still work. The company has tried in the past make surfacing pertinent tweets easier, but you needed to be a more-or-less seasoned user to draw benefit from them. According to BuzzFeed, Twitter is now in the process of making its real-time news feed accessible to everyone, whether they're on desktop, mobile, or even signed into Twitter to begin with.

IN WHAT’S ONLY one of Twitter’s many updates this week, the platform announced that it will be increasing Direct Message character count from 140 to—get ready for this—10,000. That’s right: The humble, minimalist, to-the-point DM is moving on up to the messaging big leagues.

Gust MEES's insight:

IN WHAT’S ONLY one of Twitter’s many updates this week, the platform announced that it will be increasing Direct Message character count from 140 to—get ready for this—10,000. That’s right: The humble, minimalist, to-the-point DM is moving on up to the messaging big leagues.

Effective Social Media Practices and Good Online Teaching Inside Higher Ed (blog) The goal to invest in presence and achieve community are also the two hallmarks of effective online teaching. If you teach online you need be present.

Effective Social Media Practices and Good Online Teaching Inside Higher Ed (blog) The goal to invest in presence and achieve community are also the two hallmarks of effective online teaching. If you teach online you need be present.

It was always kind of shady that Facebook let you volunteer your friends' status updates, check-ins, location, interests and more to third-party apps.

Overall, the changes could boost confidence in Facebook’s platform and the social network itself, which has struggled in the past with a reputation for spotty privacy. Cross says the conversion rate on people logging in with Facebook has increased 11 percent and believes this means “More people feel comfortable logging in with Facebook.”

It was always kind of shady that Facebook let you volunteer your friends' status updates, check-ins, location, interests and more to third-party apps.

Overall, the changes could boost confidence in Facebook’s platform and the social network itself, which has struggled in the past with a reputation for spotty privacy. Cross says the conversion rate on people logging in with Facebook has increased 11 percent and believes this means “More people feel comfortable logging in with Facebook.”

Twitter has announced in a blog post that it is revising its privacy policy and terms of service, effective May 18th, for all non-US accounts. At that time, Twitter says services provided by its Twitter International Company based in Dublin, Ireland will handle account information under Irish privacy and data protection law, which is based on the European Union’s Data Protection

Gust MEES's insight:

Twitter has announced in a blog post that it is revising its privacy policy and terms of service, effective May 18th, for all non-US accounts. At that time, Twitter says services provided by its Twitter International Company based in Dublin, Ireland will handle account information under Irish privacy and data protection law, which is based on the European Union’s Data Protection

Simply put, he found that, if you had Facebook's Photo Sync feature turned on, then any app with permission to access photos on your phone could access your synced photos, too.

Photo Sync means that whenever you take photos with your phone (and that includes screenshots, by the way), Facebook's app automatically uploads them to Facebook's cloud in case you want to publish them online later.

We can't think why that's a good idea, but many people seem to find the feature useful because:

You get an automatic backup of every photo.Uploaded photos are private by default, so they aren't visible to other people until you want them to be.It makes it convenient to share photos later on.Laxman's bug was the fact that apps other than Facebook's own could read those synced photos back from the cloud.

Obviously, if you've authorised an app to access the photos on your device, you have already accepted the risk of allowing that app to do unsavoury things with private snapshots you might take.

So this is not an earth-moving bug, but it's definitely a security hole.

Simply put, he found that, if you had Facebook's Photo Sync feature turned on, then any app with permission to access photos on your phone could access your synced photos, too.

Photo Sync means that whenever you take photos with your phone (and that includes screenshots, by the way), Facebook's app automatically uploads them to Facebook's cloud in case you want to publish them online later.

We can't think why that's a good idea, but many people seem to find the feature useful because:

You get an automatic backup of every photo.Uploaded photos are private by default, so they aren't visible to other people until you want them to be.It makes it convenient to share photos later on.Laxman's bug was the fact that apps other than Facebook's own could read those synced photos back from the cloud.

Obviously, if you've authorised an app to access the photos on your device, you have already accepted the risk of allowing that app to do unsavoury things with private snapshots you might take.

So this is not an earth-moving bug, but it's definitely a security hole.

In order to determine that I was attempting to log in from an "unusual" location, Twitter must be keeping a history of my previous IP addresses to compare against. This type of security feature is not new, Facebook has been doing this sort of thing for years already. But I've not yet seen it from Twitter. (A few years ago, Twitter seemed to be actively against such an idea.) Unlike Facebook, I don't see anyplace from which I can download my own connection history. Previous IP addresses used are available to those who download a Facebook archive. But IP address information isn't in the Twitter archive that I downloaded today.

So then the questions I now have for Twitter is this: for how long have my connections been logged and tracked? And when will a copy of the data be available to me?

Gust MEES's insight:

In order to determine that I was attempting to log in from an "unusual" location, Twitter must be keeping a history of my previous IP addresses to compare against. This type of security feature is not new, Facebook has been doing this sort of thing for years already. But I've not yet seen it from Twitter. (A few years ago, Twitter seemed to be actively against such an idea.) Unlike Facebook, I don't see anyplace from which I can download my own connection history. Previous IP addresses used are available to those who download a Facebook archive. But IP address information isn't in the Twitter archive that I downloaded today.

So then the questions I now have for Twitter is this: for how long have my connections been logged and tracked? And when will a copy of the data be available to me?

I understand the concern of this writer. But the days of net transparency and personal privacy are over. While these social media sites are great for business and personal use, they do carry some security risks. Non-release of tracking data by social media providers is one of those risks. By the time such data are released, the damage (if any) is already done. Welcome to the real world. Privacy is just about dead. I wish I had an answer to this question, but I don't. Just be careful what you release to social networks. The data will remain in some server forever, to be released or retained at the pleasure of the company monitoring your social media activity. Aloha, Russ.

Toro, a startup that helps developers promote their apps on Facebook, just announced that it’s been acquired by Google.

The company was originally known as Red Hot Labs, and it’s led by Amitt Mahajan and Joel Poloney. They previously co-founded MyMiniLife, which played a key role in the creation of FarmVille (and was acquired by Zynga).

Mahajan and Poloney told me last fall that the company’s aim was to make launching and optimizing a Facebook ad campaign as easy as possible for mobile app developers, by automatically creating and testing “hundreds of variants” for each campaign.

In its announcement, Toro writes that joining Google will give team members access to more resources and distribution, allowing them to “continue our mission of making the lives of app developers easier.”

The company was originally known as Red Hot Labs, and it’s led by Amitt Mahajan and Joel Poloney. They previously co-founded MyMiniLife, which played a key role in the creation of FarmVille (and was acquired by Zynga).

Mahajan and Poloney told me last fall that the company’s aim was to make launching and optimizing a Facebook ad campaign as easy as possible for mobile app developers, by automatically creating and testing “hundreds of variants” for each campaign.

In its announcement, Toro writes that joining Google will give team members access to more resources and distribution, allowing them to “continue our mission of making the lives of app developers easier.”